Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim not getting demo

It's no surprise, but we now have solid confirmation that Bethesda won't release a demo for Skyrim, due to its size and complexity.

It's no surprise to hear, but we now have now solid confirmation that Bethesda won't release a demo for The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, due to the fantasy RPG's "size and complexity."

"No, we won't be doing a demo. With a game this size and complexity, it's really hard to do a demo that represents the game truly," Skyrim lead producer Craig Lafferty has told Gameplanet (via Eurogamer). "It'd be a gigantic demo as well. So we won't be doing a demo."

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It was to be expected, really. The last Elder Scrolls game to receive a demo was 1996's Daggerfall; Bethesda's similarly open-world-y Fallout 3 also went demo-less. As half the joy of the series lies in roaming freely and doing as you please, it'd be difficult and time-consuming to cut a slice of Skyrim that properly captured that freedom and variety.

Still, any sort of demo at all would be handy for players to test how well the game runs on their PC and get a feel for some of Skyrim's updated mechanics. Shame. Even some sort of benchmark test, as Capcom has taken tomaking for PC ports, would be welcome.

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is headed to PC, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 on November 11. As you evidently won't be playing it yourself before launch, you might fancy reading our April preview.